U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore holds up pages with a news story about himself as he speaks at a campaign rally, Monday, Dec. 11, 2017, in Midland City, Ala. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)

In a remarkable moment of complete honesty, President Trump tweeted that last night’s election in Alabama proves that Republicans “need to put up GREAT Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and Senate.”

In other words: not candidates like Judge Roy Moore.

If last night’s election proved anything, it proved that we need to put up GREAT Republican candidates to increase the razor thin margins in both the House and Senate.

Obviously, Moore wasn’t as strong a candidate as the nationalist-populist wing of the Republican Party had hoped. It should never even have been close. We’re talking about Alabama, after all, one of the reddest states in America.

So, Trump certainly has a point. What’s remarkable, though, is that he’s criticizing Moore (and therefore Steve Bannon) so publicly. It’s very rare for him to do so — he usually tries to keep his relationship with the Breitbart boss as good as possible. Apparently, Trump has concluded that Bannon too can make mistakes… and that supporting Moore was one of them.